Новости/Аналитика

Predictable boom in hemp-based products from biocomposite materials in the USA

26.12.2018

American manufacturers of cannabis-based biocomposite materials have already achieved results, according to which their small quantities of bioplastic products are sold at a price that is only 6% higher than the cost of traditional plastics. Further cost reductions will lead to the fact that hemp bioplastic will be able to compete on an equal footing with traditional producers of plastics both in price and in their physical, mechanical or chemical characteristics, and in a number of cases will be able to outperform traditional polymeric materials.

After the President of the United States signed changes to the “Law on Agriculture”, under which the cultivation, processing, and sales of products from technical hemp are officially allowed at the federal level, all conditions for the rapid growth of American hemp breeding are created. The adoption of this regulatory act pushed many companies in the United States to actively promote previously impossible scenarios, the development of firms in a number of actively opening sectors of American cannabis production.

Until recently, attempts to create production facilities for the processing of hemp raw materials and the production of biocomposite materials based on hemp failed because the volume of hemp production in the country was extremely small. Understanding the trend, according to which, starting from 2019, the volume of industrial crops of technical hemp will increase significantly, those developments that exist in the production of biocomposite materials on cannabis basis will be actively introduced into mass production from 2019.

In particular, a number of US companies specializing in the production of cannabinoids used in food or cosmetics, invest their own financial resources in the development of technologies related to the production of biocomposite materials based on cannabis. Until recently, surplus production in the form of hemp biomass was exported to Asia due to the fact that they could not be recycled in the United States due to the imperfection of the current legislation. Now it becomes possible to process hemp biomass in the United States and, accordingly, the production of hemp plastic polymers. American horse growers are already engaged in intensive negotiations and conclude relevant agreements with manufacturers of packaging products, and also finance trial lots of products manufactured on the basis of biocomposite materials based on hemp raw materials.

Currently, American manufacturers of hemp-based biocomposite materials have already achieved results, according to which their small quantities of bioplastic products are sold at a price that is only 6% higher than the cost of traditional plastics. Further cost reductions will lead to the fact that hemp bioplastic will be able to compete on an equal footing with traditional producers of plastics both in price and in their physical, mechanical or chemical characteristics, and in a number of cases will be able to outperform traditional polymeric materials.

Fortunately for the American manufacturers of hemp-based biocomposite materials, there are already a significant number of companies that manufacture food, cosmetic or pharmacological products that prefer packaging made from decomposable hemp-based biocomposite materials. The ecology positioned by them does not allow them to use traditional plastics made using derivatives of various fossil resources. The environmental trend in the production of biocomposite materials on hemp is another reason that American investors have recently been actively investing in the production of degradable biocomposite materials manufactured using various hemp ingredients.

Commentary of the «Ukrainian Industrial Hemp Association»

Recent studies by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation clearly indicate that with today's production rates and without changing the nature of disposal, the weight of plastic waste in the world's oceans could exceed the weight of fish by 2050. About 300 million tons of plastic are produced worldwide every year. It is expected that in the USA alone in 2019 about 23 thousand tons of biocomposite materials on hemp base will be produced. This volume can already demonstrate to the flagships of the American industry the prospects for the use of biocomposite materials based on hemp, as well as the possibility of replacing traditional technologies for the production of plastics with hemp.